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AFTER COLLEGE, WHAT? For Girls. By Mrs. 

Helen E. Starrett. 
ART OF LIVING (THE). By F. Emory Lyon. 
BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS (THE). By Rev. 

J. R. Miller, D.D. 
BY THE STILL WATERS. By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. 
CHILDREN'S WING (THE). By Elizabeth Glover. 
CHRIST-FILLED LIFE (THE). By C. C. Hall, D.D. 
CONFLICTING DUTIES. By E. S. Elliott. 
CULTURE AND REFORM. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. 
DO WE BELIEVE IT? By E. S. Elliott. 
EXPECTATION CORNER. By E. S. Elliott. 
FAMILY MANNERS. By Elizabeth Glover. 
GENTLE HEART (A). By the Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. 
GIRLS : Faults and Ideals. By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. 
GIVING WHAT WE HAVE. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. 
GOLDEN RULE IN BUSINESS. By Rev. C. F. Dole. 
HAPPY LIFE (THE). By Charles W. Eliott, LL.D. 
HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. T.DeWittTalmage.D.D. 
J. COLE. By Emma Gellibrand. 

JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER. By Hesba Stretton. 
KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. By John Ruskin. 
LADDIE. By the author of " Miss Toosey's Mission." 
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
MASTER AND MAN. By Count Tolstoi. 
MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION. By the author of "Laddie." 
PATHS OF DUTY (THE). By Dean Farrar. 
REAL HAPPENINGS. By Mrs. Mary B. Clafiin. 
SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. By Rev. J. R. 

Miller, D.D. 
SELF-CULTURE. By Wm. E. Channing, D.D. 
SHIPS AND HAVENS. By Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D.D. 
STILLNESS AND SERVICE. By E. S. Elliott. 
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. By Matthew Arnold. 
TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. By Elizabeth Glover. 
TELL JESUS. By Anna Shipton. 
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. By E. S. Elliott. 
TRUE WOMANHOOD. By W. Cunningham, D.D. 
TWO PILGRIMS (THE). By Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. 
VICTORY OF OUR FAITH. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. 
WHAT IS WORTH WHILE? By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. 
WHAT MEN LIVE BY. By Count Lvof N. Tolstoi. 
WHEN THE KING COMES TO HIS OWN. By E. 

S. Elliott. 
WHEREFORE, O GOD ? By the Rev. C. B. Herbert. 
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THE ART OF LIVING 



THE REV. FMlMORY LYON 

SOCIAL SCIENCE LECTURER, AND AUTHOR OF " SOCIAL EVANGELISM ! 



" The art of Life — the greatest of all artsy 

Thomas Carlyle 



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NOTE. 

The following was prepared as a lecture, with no 
thought of publication. But many who have heard it 
expressed a desire to give some of the statements 
more deliberate attention; also inquiries concerning it 
from various parts of the country by those who may 
not hear it have induced me to submit it to the pub- 
lishers in its present form of direct address. As a 
convenient gift-book I trust it may fulfil a definite 
mission as an inspiration to mental and spiritual 
culture. F E L 

Madison, Wis. 



THE ART OF LIVING. 



" Plain living and high thinking," that all-sufficient 
motto of Wordsworth, perhaps best defines what I mean 
by the art of living. True living is certainly nothing 
less than an art. And if we get a proper conception of 
the meaning and mission of art, I hardly see how living 
can be anything more. Living is more than a theory, 
since we are daily reminded that it is intensely practi- 
cal. But it is therefore more than a philosophy. Mil- 
lions of unlearned mortals have lived, and lived right 
well, who never knew philosophy. Other thousands of 
lettered fame have been scientists, and science is the 
opposite of philosophy. The one is the philosophy of 
atoms, the other is the science of universals. But life 
is more than both of these, since they ignore the more 
essential elements in human nature. The philosopher, 
with his cold reason, defies emotion ; while the scientist 
Darwin sadly confessed that he had lost his taste for 
poetry and song. To be sure, there is and ought to be 
a science of living. It is the basis. We would not 
underestimate that. But it is, after all, the . elementary 
process. It is not " an ugly anatomy " merely, yet it 
embodies the unsentimental detail of life. The art of 
living is needed to give it finish and embellishment. 
" Art adorns science," says some one. " Science is the 
helpmeet of art. Art is the love of the soul, as science 

5 



6 THE ART OF LIVING. 

is its law." Hence we may affirm : science is the root 
of the tree of life ; art is its fruit and flower. For art, 
we must know at the outset, is more than painting, else 
who of us is not an artist ? As it is not all of life to 
live, so it is not all of art to paint. Art is even more 
than formative, such as painting, poetry, music, sculp- 
ture, and architecture. Art is chiefly inspirational 
and ministrative. Ruskin, more than any one else, has 
taught us that art is not only for beauty, but for use. 
He once said, " I can get no soul to believe that the be- 
ginning of art is to get our country clean and our people 
beautiful." All man's work, so far as it ministers to 
human comfort or pleasure or betterment, is art. And 
it is because of this practical nature of true art that we 
may consistently speak of the art of living. The glory 
of recent art, and of recent science as well, is that they 
have come into direct contact with real life. Laud seer's 
dogs and Rosa Bonheur's horses are popular because 
they seem, above all things else, to throb with life. No 
science has ever seemed quite so fascinating as the 
crowning science of biology has now become. Matter 
itself could never be rightly appreciated but for the 
phenomena of vegetable and animal life. It is not 
strange that to us who live the most fascinating of all 
themes is life itself. Indeed, is not life in the abstract 
the most marvellous fact in all the world ? Wonderful 
as are the facts of star or stone, of chemistry or calcu- 
lus, of physics or language, the simplest elements of real 
life surpass them all. And the interest increases with 
the degree of life. Little wonder, then, that man, pos- 
sessing the highest form of this sacred gift, delights to 
cherish it. Drummond has said that the greatest thing 
in the world is love. But love and life are interchange- 



THE ART OF LIVING. 1 

able. Both are eternal. Only the loveless and the un- 
loved do not wish to live. Man is the battling-ground 
of two great kingdoms of life, the animal and the 
spiritual. To the vegetable and animal kingdoms of 
life, Christianity adds another, the spiritual kingdom. 
This new dispensation brings higher life to man. And 
like John the Baptist, though, as Christ said, none born 
of woman in the old kingdom was greater than he, yet 
the least in the new kingdom was greater. So all along 
this line of life the least in every higher kingdom is 
greater than the greatest in the lower. Many are the 
seeming leaps and bounds in the progress of man; but 
in all his age-long development, to me the most marvel- 
lous moment is when God breathed into him the breath 
of life, and he became a living soul — a conscious, act- 
ing being. If you wish, you may watch this germ until 
it is quickened into divinest energy, and man becomes 
a new creature. Then, may we not add to our kingdoms 
of life another, the celestial ? 

It is at least because of this great and growing fact 
of life that science may now be put into poetic form, as 
did Goethe. It is because of this that all life tends 
toward artistic expression. It is because art is so in- 
separable from life that we can say with Dr. Maudsley, 
that " art has now opening before it a field so wide 
that imagination cannot dare to limit it. For science 
must plainly attain to its highest development in the 
work of the future poet, who shall give to its reality a 
beautiful form." But I have said that living is a prac- 
tical art. Since men have lived upon the earth, they 
have had to learn to live. All the different stages of 
civilization have been but the record of progress in the 
art of living. All the creation of tools and instruments 



8 THE ART OF LIVING. 

in the practical arts has been the product of man's re- 
sources and his reason at any given time. We are, 
therefore, not only " a part of all we have known," but 
also of all they of the past have conceived. We are one 
with the universal mind of history, and heirs to all its 
discoveries. We may practise plain living and high 
thinking because we are the offspring of other genera- 
tions of plain-living and high-thinking people. In some 
respects, may it not be said our forefathers followed a 
form of plain-living which puts to shame much modern 
luxury and dissipation ? Scotch oatmeal, New England 
brown bread, early to bed and early to rise habits, and 
the pioneers' out-door life upon the Western prairies, 
were all decidedly better than the nervous tension and 
stimulant reaction under which so many now live. We 
may think well also, because we are inseparably con- 
nected with the past. The choice spirits of all time 
have thought loftily, and we know what they have 
thought. The student of to-day, as Herschel has said, 
" is placed in contact with the best society in every 
period of history, — with the wisest, the wittiest, the 
tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who. 
have adorned humanity. He is a denizen of all nations, 
a contemporary of all ages." 

But we may also think high thoughts because of our 
vital contact with the modern world. Because of the 
marvellous strides in discovery and invention, our mod- 
ern life has become more and more complex and inter- 
dependent. In consequence the art of living, while it 
has been refined and simplified, has also been exalted. 
Where once we waited long weary weeks for the mail- 
stage to cross the continent, now we step to the telephone, 
and talk with our New York neighbors or Connecticut 



THE ART OF LIVING. 9 

cousins. Whereas our fathers lived in isolation, far 
from the madding crowd, our solitary place is along the 
crowded thoroughfare of strangers ; and we know, with 
Emerson, that " where neighbors are near, friends are 
few." But all this at least makes high thinking pos- 
sible. It gives us more time for mental acquirement. 
It enables the specialist in science to tell us the prop- 
erties of foods, and the inventor to add machine! y for 
their utilization; thus insuring us strong minds and 
bodies to think with. For we think with our bodies as 
well as our minds. Scientists tell us not only that the 
spinal cord contains gray matter like the brain, but that 
all our nerve-processes are forms of thought. We, there- 
fore, think literally to the ends of our fingers and toes. 

It is thus I would speak of the art of living for the 
individual. But not of the individual except as he is 
vitally related to all other individuals, and to all insti- 
tutions of which they are common factors. I would 
have them learn from the past and for the future, re- 
membering that there " are other futures to stir the 
world's great heart." 

Says Browning, — 

" For more is not reserved to man, with soul just nerved, 
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day ; 
Here work enough to watch the Master work, 
And catch hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 
He fixed thee 'mid this dance of plastic circumstance 
This present thou, forsooth, would fain arrest; 
Machinery just meant to give thy soul its hent — 
Try thee, and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed." 

And now let us take one man as our example, and 
find what are the essential factors of his development in 
the art of living. Let us follow him in our thought 



10 THE ART OF LIVING. 

from the cradle to the grave ; witness his evolution from 
savagery to civilization ; watch his growth from igno- 
rance to acknowledged culture ; see his power of acqui- 
sition from poverty to affluence ; behold his personal 
strivings and his social problems ; make him a citizen, 
and then a statesman ; a civilian and an officer. From 
all these standpoints, and in all these processes, observe 
what man has done by way of seeking the art of living. 
All along the pathway he has met with ever-recurring 
wants. He has desired health. He has sought for 
wealth. He has sought to satisfy his social instincts. 
He has striven for the power of knowledge. He has 
created food for his aesthetic nature. He has brought 
about the reform and progress of the world through the 
triumph of his ideals. He has endeavored to find his 
place in the world, and to bring himself into harmony 
with the universe of truth and beauty. All this man 
has done, or tried to do, by way of finding the art of 
living. It were well if we could honestly say he had 
always satisfied these wants in an artistic way. But he 
has made the honest effort. Let us give him credit for 
that ; and since he is still trying, we will give him our 
encouragement. 

There is one great principle or fact which we must get 
clearly in our minds before proceeding farther. This 
principle, at which I have already hinted, every one 
must firmly lay hold of if he would understand the 
world he lives in, the history of the past, or the art of 
future living and acting. And that is the principle, the 
law, of progress, of development, of evolution. Here is 
a fact, it seems to me, a greater than which the human 
mind can scarcely conceive. For it applies not only to 
the infinite development of man, but to all life ; to all 



THE ART OF LIVING. 11 

worlds and races, and to all the institutions of men. A 
fact, I say ; since it can hardly any longer be called an 
hypothesis, as it is now unquestioned, so far as I know, 
by intelligent people. One simple definition of evo- 
lution, as given by a great scientist, is : " Continuous, 
progressive change, according to certain laws, and by 
means of resident forces." (Le Conte.) But this uni- 
versal law of progress, as it was first promulgated by 
the scientists, seemed to eliminate from the universe 
the creating hand of God. It was objected to from the 
Christian standpoint on that account. But science did 
not attempt to explain the origin or find the author of 
life. It only described a process. The great Christian 
teacher, John Fiske, has described evolution as " God's 
way of doing things." To my mind, God was never so 
greatly glorified as when he was discovered to be the 
Author of such a law. The conception of God's mechan- 
ical creation of a universe, from which he had with- 
drawn his hand, certainly could not honor him as does 
the idea of divine immanence, abiding in perpetual cre- 
ation and redemption. 
Says Tennyson, — 

"Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning age of ages, 
Shall not seon after aeon pass, and touch him into shape? " 

Kedemption is the crown of creation ; and although, 
as one suggests, " this is a very good world for one that 
is only half made," we may count upon God remaining 
in it until every man is complete in Christ Jesus. Nor 
do I think for a moment that the evolutionary premise 
detracts in the least from the dignity or greatness of 
man. To be sure, it tells us that few things in this 
world have come by leaps and bounds. All of man's 



12 THE ART OF LIVING. 

seemingly brilliant discoveries and achievements have 
been suggested and wrought out by the race, little by 
little. Each invention has been the combined suggestion 
of several men, most of them from several generations. 
All the great writers, even, have been little else than the 
recorders of a culminating period of history, embody- 
ing the fruits of other men's thinking. No stage of civ- 
ilization has come into existence spontaneously, but has 
grown out of the stage before it. Not even genius itself 
can be spontaneously generated, as many suppose, but 
has been defined as the capacity for infinite pains and 
toil. Man is not less, but more, entitled to credit because 
he has had the infinite patience and power to adapt 
the lessons of preceding centuries to his own use. That 
he could certainly do this, and continues to do it, only 
demonstrates his power to make living itself the finest 
of the arts. We can only briefly illustrate man's demon- 
stration of this great law of progress. We cannot here 
discuss scientific evolution as related to the origin and 
continuity of life, nor the divine element the chief factor 
in all creation and Providence. But as a question of 
anthropology, we will take a little time to notice its. 
workings. 

The progress of the race has been roughly divided 
into three stages, — the savage, the barbaric, and the civ- 
ilized. The lowest, or savage state, is that in which man 
subsists on wild plants, animals, and fruit. He neither 
tills the soil nor domesticates creatures for food. He 
uses what he finds, but it doesn't seem to occur to him 
to make anything to supply his needs. In this stage man 
seems quite independent. But, after all, it is the inde- 
pendence of ignorance. " Man is least dependent," says 
Dr. Ely, " when he wants least, cares least, knows least, 



THE ART OF LIVING. 13 

and is least." It is only by multiplying his needs and 
his dependence upon others that he in reality becomes 
independent. Between this stage and civilized man 
there is a middle ground. It is the agricultural stage. 
Man then begins to " raise " his living. By this means 
he forestalls the uncertainty of hunting and fishing. 
He also ceases to roam about so much, and settles in a 
permanent home. More important than all, he now for 
the first time begins to make many things that he wants. 
And for this reason he here first finds that living is an art. 
For him to live as he now wants to live is but to apply, - 
though he doesn't know it, the principles of mechanical 
art. But for us the study of his progress in the prac- 
tical art of living is most fascinating. We find him 
making crude instruments of stone or flint or bronze. 
He takes a great stride forward when he learns the art 
of kindling fire. This barbarian sees a fish caught in 
the weeds, and he proceeds to make a fishing-net. He 
once carried a stick to dig up roots, then he made a 
wooden hoe, and afterwards a plough. Seeing a dead 
log floating down the river, he jumps astride it, and pad- 
dles with his hands. Then he hollows out the log, and 
makes a canoe. He uses his cunning as against the 
strength of the beast by setting a trap in the woods. 
From that is suggested to him the bow and arrow, and 
that again leads to the rudimentary gun. He first rolled 
a log down hill. Then he hewed out the centre, and 
laid another across it ; a little more hewing, and he had 
an axle and wheels on the same principle as modern car- 
wheels. It was easy to add a rude platform, and behold 
a cart. When man was altogether savage he sheltered 
with the wild beasts in caves. But observing the birds 
build their nests, he tied the leafy boughs together over 



14 THE ART OF LIVING. 

his own head. Then he stretched his captured hides 
around the sides. Or, if this rude hut for one or two 
was not large enough, he laid parallel walls of stone or 
mud, and connected them with a thatched roof. And 
when he noticed the sun baked the clay, he learned to 
make brick. When it was cold, it was but natural that 
he should transfer the skin of a beast, or the tubular bark 
of a tree, to his own body. His corn he first pounded 
into meal with a stick in a hollow stone. Finally an- 
other stone was fitted into the first, an upright lever 
was used to turn it back and forth, and "two women 
were grinding at the mill." By a step at a time, water- 
power, then steam, was attached to this stone — and 
see, you have the modern milling enterprise. And so 
we might go on indefinitely, describing how he learned 
to row and cook and sew ; the slow process of finding 
the art of spinning and weaving, the uses of metals, 
of barter and commerce, and the usefulness of various 
vessels. Step by step there was developed the use of 
language, the art of writing, and the consequent record- 
ing of history, law, knowledge, and religion. These 
things, indeed, mark the beginning of a civilized stage 
of life. For it is only by the use of writing that the past 
and the future could be bound together by an unbroken 
chain of intellectual and moral progress. The savage 
and the barbarian advanced, it is true, because they 
were under the inevitable influence of evolution. But 
he advanced in spite of himself rather than because he 
desired progress, or consciously set about to attain it. 
Indeed, in his great reverence for ancestry, and under 
the inertia of tribe custom, he rather resisted this prog- 
ress. Are we to conclude that something of the savage 
still remains in those moderns who are always contend- 



THE ART OF LIVING. 15 

ing for precedent, and never admit an amendment to 
their political or religious creed ? Alt the progress of 
the past is a protest against such conservative crystal- 
lization. The essential difference between savagery and 
civilization is that the one follows unconscious progress, 
while the other leads on in the full consciousness of 
its own development. Civilization wants progress, and 
deliberately sets about to secure it. And woe be to 
the conservative whose excess of reverence sets him 
crosswise of this progressive age. Far better suited to 
this time is that excess of vitality which makes the 
radical. Far better that one should have the Zaccheus 
view, enabling him to see afar the advantages and bless- 
ings approaching. He holds the key to the situation, — 
the Pisgah view-point of the man who stands upon the 
summit of some great mountain, and "views the land- 
scape o'er." It is true we may not be very proud of 
our civilization, even at its present best. We certainly 
ought not to be satisfied with anything that can be 
improved. "With all our boasted progress, civilization is 
not yet an unmitigated good. Some one has written of 
" Civilization, its Cause and Cure." But whatever its 
cause, we may say with William Morris, "The only 
remedy for civilization is more civilization." It is true 
that there are some things in our civilization which are 
" forever settled," as some are so fond of saying. For 
"what is excellent, as God lives, is permanent." And 
all that was good and true in the olden times will live in 
the new. But it is also just as true that some things 
which for centuries have been supposed to be permanent 
are by no means excellent. According to our higher con- 
ceptions and better ethics, they are abominations to the 
world and to God, Therefore no crystallization of these 



16 THE ART OF LIVING. 

things into laws and creeds, or forms and symbols, can 
make them permanent against the tide of our advan- 
cing consciousness. For the on-sweeping march of the 
world's progress in the art of living is irresistible. As 
applied to all life, society, education, culture, govern- 
ment, and religion, it is the golden key to the cabinet of 
all true living and acting. 

We have seen the application of this principle . of 
growth in the lower stages of life. There are just as 
definite lines of development within the civilized state 
itself. Here, again, three different forms of progress 
have been noted. There was first the empirical or imi- 
tative. This was but little above the barbaric we have 
described. In this stage life is regarded in an imper- 
sonal way, and with superstitious awe. Mingling with 
this period, and growing out of it, is the legal and scien- 
tific spirit. Its law is the law of might, and its religion 
is the idolatry of matter — of things rather than ideas. 
There is law here, but no grace. There are duties, but 
few rights ; business, but little patriotism ; laws and 
causes, but little interest in ultimate effects ; a me- 
chanical view of society with little sympathy. The 
world is under the spell of Goethe's scientific mandate : 
" He who wills the great must serve the stringent ought. 
Only such obedience proves the master soul. Law alone 
assures us freedom's conquering might." We can now 
see the limitations of the extreme scientific tempera- 
ment. And yet it has brought its blessings to the 
world. It has brought to us a rational faith in the 
place of superstition. It has given us astronomy in- 
stead of astrology. It has traded us chemistry for 
alchemy. For phrenology we have the science of psy- 
chology. In fact, the scientific stage of man's develop- 



THE ART OF LIVING. 17 

ment has given the human mind that substratum of 
facts upon which faith in higher and better things is 
based. But, to use the language of another . " After 
analysis comes synthesis, and beyond the practical reali- 
zation of science in works whicn add to human comfort, 
there remains the sesthetical embodiment of science." 
In other words, we approach the artistic, the spontane- 
ous, the creative, life-giving impulse. Here men cease 
to be the slaves of fact, and become the servants, if you 
please, of fancy. For the thirst of the human mind for 
the ideal is no less normal and imperative than its hun- 
ger for the real. In so far as men rise above bondage 
to science alone, and live upon the artistic plane, they 
cease to live by rule and law alone, and begin to be im- 
pelled by impulse, by love, and inspiration. They learn 
the truth, not by rote, but by intuition. From this 
standpoint it is the " beauty of holiness, not holiness by 
rule and measure," that we seek. A great artist urged 
that no art can be the result of external compulsion. 
Neither can the artistic life. It must be voluntary, 
even cheerful, and it must develop from within like all 
organic life. The Pharasaic standard of "how much 
must I do " no longer satisfies. Our righteousness must 
exceed that ; and we therefore ask, " How much will I 
be permitted to do ? " The criterion of a man's success 
in the world is, as a great university president has said, 
not how much he has gotten out of the community, but 
how much he has benefited society. A government or 
a municipality, according to this artistic standard, is by 
no means merely a business corporation. It is infinitely 
more than this, or else there is no such thing as patriot- 
ism. Lester F. Ward, the great social scientist, says, 
" We are living in the < stone age ' of the art of govern- 



18 THE ART OF LIVING 

ment. We shall not emerge from it until the principle 
of i attractive legislation ? is thoroughly understood and 
applied." There must be a higher motive in obeying 
law than that it is law. There needs to be law, but 
there is need also of the recognition of grace from a 
higher hand. There is need of facts and things ; but 
there is also a necessity for — 

" Things whose strong reality 
Outshines our fairyland in shapes and lines 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky." 

There is need of science ; but there is more need of art, 
" not to antagonize science, but to assimilate it." 

In considering these different stages of the develop- 
ment of life and thought which I have described, we 
cannot draw a hard and fast line between them, and say 
where one begins and the other leaves off. Society is in 
all stages of development at the same time. It is not 
difficult to find savage customs and barbaric conceptions 
of life at the present time. We are still striving to lib- 
erate ourselves from the bondage of superstition. But 
in general, may it not be said we are just now midway 
between the scientific and the artistic plane of life and 
thought? And while no intelligent person would per- 
haps care to be labelled by any exclusive tag, yet we 
may have a right to say that most people at the present 
time have either the scientific or the artistic tempera- 
ment predominating. Not that these are found in any 
respective classes. There are artists and philosophers 
who are materialistic in the extreme. While, on the 
other hand, there are scientists, artisans, and working- 
men who are philosophical in their methods, and idealis- 
tic in their aims. But on the whole, could we not safely 



THE ART OF LIVING. 19 

divide society into two classes, — those who have to do 
with things, who live in the world of things, who de- 
light in handling things, who have no faith in anything 
but things ; and those, on the other hand, who have to do 
with ideas, who love ideas, who believe in the triumph 
of ideas, who live as President Madison "appeared to 
live wholly in the world of ideas," who treat things as 
Emerson treated a load of wood, just as though it were 
real, while the atmosphere of ideas in which he lived 
was infinitely more tangible ? These are they who fol- 
low the advice of the great writer who said, " Fill your 
mind and heart, however large, with the ideas and senti- 
ments of your age, and the work will follow." 

It is in this latter class, I am proud to say, I profess 
my greatest interest and sympathy. It is in this realm 
that living, to my mind, for the first time becomes not 
only an art, but a fine art. To demonstrate this we will 
now proceed to pay our respects to the power of ideas, 
the superiority of mind over matter, and consider the 
artistic method of education. I am sure we will have 
no trouble in agreeing with Henry George when he 
said, " Mind, not muscle, is the promoter of progress." 
And also with Channing, " It is mind, after all, which 
does the work of the world, so that the more there is 
of mind, the more work will be accomplished." And we 
do not forget the words of Frances E. Willard, "The 
two greatest forces working in the world to-day are edu- 
cation and wealth. And of these two, education is as 
far superior to wealth as is electricity to horse-power." 
There is no need at this time of expatiating upon the 
value of education. The man who said, " The college is 
the interpreter of the universe to the soul of man," but 
voiced the universal verdict. Of course we know of 



20 TEE ART OF LIVING. 

those who have had the best academic training, and yet 
are not truly educated. While others, with little techni- 
cal knowledge, have had the philosophy of a Franklin, 
or the statesmanship of a Lincoln. But it is of true 
education, the real power to think well and act ration- 
ally, that we would speak. Some of us extract all the 
comfort we can from the estimate of Isaac Watts, " The 
mind is the stature of the man." But, after all, perhaps 
he didn't mean any of us. More likely he was thinking 
of a Shakespeare or a Plato's brain, or the mind of a 
Homer or Hamilton or Webster. Who knows but he 
meant Jefferson, of whom it was said, " He had the best 
head in Virginia," or Milton, who had "an amplitude 
of mind to greatest deeds " ? But these are exceptions. 
We common mortals have to admit our limitations. We 
freely confess with Isaiah that " as the heavens are 
high above the earth, so are God's thoughts higher than 
man's thoughts." Man's vagrant mind can scarcely at- 
tain unto them. But we insist it should be the aim 
of education to make us put on our thinking-caps. It 
is the business of science through a Kepler to " think 
God's thoughts after him." It is the province of phi- 
losophy in an Emerson to " let the world beware when 
God lets loose a thinker on this planet." It is by the 
power of literature, through a Dryden, that " I know I 
am because I think." It is by the stimulating thought- 
power in Euskin that " all art is revelation, and all art 
is praise." It is, in short, the mission of all true educa- 
tion to make thinkers of us all. Knowledge is " thinking 
things together." It is analysis, but it is also synthesis. 
It is to behold the wide field of things and ideas in their 
true relations and bearings. It is to nourish and culti- 
vate the mental faculties. It is not the cramming of 



THE ART OF LIVING, 21 

facts into the brain, but the outworking of the thinker's 
soul. For "there is an inmost centre in us all," said 
Browning, " where truth abides in fulness, and around, 
wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. And to 
know rather consists in opening out a way whence the 
imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry 
for a light supposed to be without." This view, as to 
the method of gaining knowledge, has revolutionized our 
educational system. It is now brought into harmony 
with the great law of progress, and becomes at once a 
science and an art. It has given us a new science of 
psychology, — the recognition of systematic mental as 
well as physical action. It is now known that mind 
follows certain laws of growth no less than matter. If 
body and bush can be analyzed, the brain may also re- 
veal its secrets. Studies are accordingly adapted to 
every stage of development. What truth is adapted 
to the full-grown man is not suited to the child-mind. 
This fact has given us a new child-psychology. " The 
educator," thought Pestalozzi, " creates nothing new in 
the children ; he only superintends the development of 
inborn faculties." And this idea was carried still far- 
ther by his great disciple, Frederick Frobel. It is he, 
indeed, who was the real discoverer of this new child- 
psychology. Frobel held with Rousseau that each age 
has a completeness of its own, and that there must be a 
harmonious development of the entire child-nature. Its 
play must be work, and its work, study. " Living, act- 
ing, conceiving," he said, — " these must form a triple 
cord within every child of man." Knowledge is the 
pursuit of truth. Therefore truth will not be attained 
by correcting error. Emphasize the truth, and its op- 
posite will be forgotten. Likewise teach the good, and 



22 THE ART OF LIVING. 

let it fill the life, and the evil will be crowded out before 
we know it. " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome 
evil with good." And this method of mind-training has 
been found applicable not merely to the kindergarten. 
These are universal principles, which apply to all stages 
of development and to all branches of study. Educa- 
tion, as we now conceive it, is nothing less than the 
attempt to learn " the truth, all of the truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth." Whether in the field of science or 
art, of philosophy, history, or theology, we would en- 
deavor to strip the facts from all the verbiage of men's 
opinions, and get at them in the true light of their 
own glory. For the sunlight of God's truth has often 
been darkened by the doubtful embellishment of human 
dogma. And this by scientific dogmatism no less than 
religious. The true art of education, on the contrary, 
is the cultivation of the eclectic spirit, — the power to 
gather the truth without prejudice from all directions 
and every source. For all truth, when fully discovered, 
is found to be identical, and a part of the universal 
whole of truth. This fact has been best illustrated 
in the more recent comparative study of the sciences.. 
Formerly the specialist in each great science studied 
silently and alone, as if in that line lay all the truth 
about the universe. He didn't even dream that the 
facts he was discovering could be approached from any 
other direction. And if there seemed to be agreements 
in the findings of different scientists, he only regarded 
it with suspicion, as he jealously guarded his own field. 
But one day the astronomer in his observatory, the 
chemist in his laboratory, the botanist with his herba- 
rium, the geologist with his "rocks of ages," the student 
of natural history, and the anthropologist, all looked up 



THE ART OF LIVING. 23 

from their work with the amazement of revelation ; for 
the first time it had dawned upon them that they were 
all coming to the same great laws and workings of the 
universe. Instead of being antagonistic, therefore, they 
could henceforth be mutually helpful. And hence the 
co-ordination of the sciences as we have them to-day. 
All sciences are looked upon and studied as one great 
world-science, each lending to the other its uncompleted 
parts to make our knowledge whole. 

According to this progressive method of study, there- 
fore, each separate branch of learning has become trans- 
formed. The study of history itself, the observation of 
man's past development in the art of living, has become 
a new science. Instead of the weary chronicles of man's 
strife and bloodshed, which is the most the text-books 
of the past contain, the long epochs of peace take their 
rightful place as of greater importance. Men have done 
more in the past than to cut one another's throats (though 
up to the present time what student from the common 
schools would think so ?). Industry has been the rule, 
and war the exception. Social advancement is discover- 
able in spite of inhuman factions. Governments have 
been formed notwithstanding internecine strifes. A 
true study of history, therefore, is not chiefly the mem- 
orizing of wars and dates, or the description of battle- 
fields and destruction. It is far other than to read the 
narratives of battle, or to revel in military gore and 
glory. The new and the true historical study is the in- 
vestigation of the social, industrial, economic, and polit- 
ical conditions of the past. We are supposed to have 
passed the military stage of development. China is just 
approaching it. Li Hung Chang thought there wasn't 
anything in Europe or America worth seeing but guns 



24 THE ART OF' LIVING. 

and standing armies. We naturally pity him, and there- 
fore we ought not to teach our children to return to his 
standpoint. To us who expect to live in peace, whose 
swords and spears are contributing to the art of peaceful 
living, it is soon found that Plato's book of a " Model 
Eepublic " is of more value than many Thermopylae. 
A Magna Charta is infinitely superior to a Waterloo. A 
great invention is quite as decisive as a Gettysburg. 
A treaty or a land-grant is far more significant than the 
relative strength of armies. The true statesman is the 
modern student's ideal Napoleon ; and the reformer is a 
greater hero than the general. The Louisiana purchase, 
the early Wisconsin fur-trade, westward emigration, the 
history of Wall Street or of a social settlement, are all 
fuM of lessons for the present times of " piping peace," 
and for the future, when the nations shall not learn war. 
All this enables the student of history to contribute far 
more to the present art of living. He means more to 
social life, and is a more valuable citizen. Such a stu- 
dent is raised from private considerations and personal 
ambitions ; and, as one puts it, " he breathes and lives 
in public and illustrious thoughts." He is able to dis- 
criminate between the permanent and the transient in 
history, and can wisely lead society when it is swayed 
by its impulses. 

But this advancement in the method and matter of 
study has been most marked of all, perhaps, in the field 
of political economy. What are called the classical 
economists of a century ago looked upon their study as 
a purely theoretical pursuit. They began by reasoning 
out certain facts about the world, and assuming cer- 
tain propositions to be universally true of human nature. 
Among these was the false assumption that man could 



THE ART OF LIVING. 25 

always be relied upon to be perfectly selfisn. From this 
law of self-interest they undertook to show how men 
would act under its guidance. Upon this also, by an 
entirely inductive process, they based the necessity of 
competition as the supreme law of progress ; of demand 
and supply as the law of production ; and " the iron law 
of wages " as the only way to properly limit population. 
It is unnecessary to say, that as many of their facts were 
transient, and their premises false, their conclusions 
were proportionately erroneous. But they held full 
sway, and were the final authorities in political economy, 
until there arose, about 1850, the German historical 
school of economists. They went back of the old prem- 
ises, and explained and modified them. They traced 
actual historical developments and industrial conditions, 
showing where certain laws were permanent, and where 
they were modified by environment. These students of 
the mere facts of industry and government were in turn 
followed by the Austrian school of economists, studying 
the subjective causes of economic phenomena. They laid 
stress upon man himself as the being for whom all indus- 
try and government should exist. All external devel- 
opment is subordinate to the growth of the individual 
factor. The individual, from this standpoint, is not re- 
garded as the tool or machine of the state, but the essen- 
tial unit. Corporations are not to grind the face of the 
poor man because he does not serve them, as the Greek 
state hurled its crippled and aged, not able to fight, to 
the dogs. Individuals are not the servants of institu- 
tions, nor are institutions to serve the interests of a 
favored few ; but they are to exist for the benefit of all 
individuals. And thus, not only the study, but the appli- 
cation, of economic principles contributes more and more 



26 THE ART OF LIVING. 

to the higher art of living. By such a method, political 
economy becomes not a theory or a philosophy, but, as 
we have it to-day, a practical and worthy social science. 

And thus through the whole developmental regime of 
study, there has been pre-eminently a study of develop- 
ments. All study is the study of life. Few facts could 
be known in such biologic research without the data of 
growth. Such study itself could not long remain at a 
standstill. Nothing is to be studied for itself, not even 
the classics. The study of language is valuable only as 
it gives us a better insight into a certain period of his- 
tory, telling us how a certain race has lived in the past. 

Says Dr. 1ST. D. Hillis, " It is an excellent thing for the 
modern student to say, ' This is a dog/ in Greek and 
Latin and Sanscrit ; but it is far more important that 
he should be able to give three facts about the dog's 
development." Likewise, it is splendid if the modern 
boarding-school product can declare, " I see a rose," in 
French, German, and Italian ; but she might better be 
telling us its natural history, and how it may bless the 
sick-room. It sounds very scholarly to give precisely 
the ancient accent to " anthropos " or j " homo ; " but we 
ought to know more of the progress, disposition, and 
destiny of plain "man." In short, many feel that the 
classics occupy a place in the average college curricu- 
lum all out of proportion to their importance. Milton, 
after studying Greek twelve years, declared for more 
practical studies. Shakespeare, on the best of authority, 
" had little Latin and less Greek." And Spencer, the 
great philosopher and master of English diction, never 
even learned the Greek alphabet. 

At least we cannot deny that this is a utilitarian 
age. There is a demand for scholars who are edu- 



THE ART OF LIVING. 27 

cated in hand, as well as in head and heart. And so 
we have industrial training-schools for teaching the 
practical and mechanical arts of life. The popular 
demand is for men who can develop the world's ma- 
terial resources. In the language of another, it wants 
"men who can build a bridge to market, or open a 
mine of fuel or ore. One who can build and run a fac- 
tory, or push a railroad across the plain." It seems 
to me there is even a suggestion of selfishness in this 
standard of coarse utility. There is even the demand 
for a man who has the conscience, or lack of conscience, 
to be, in his own words, "a plain political boss," or 
the greed to be a merchant prince, or captain of monopo- 
listic industry. A man is to be educated by all means, 
but only that he may get rich, or be elected to office, or 
increase the yield of wheat or the price of calico. Have 
we come to this, that the only purpose of knowledge is 
to make money ? Is man a money-making machine ? 
Is progress simply the development of our material 
resources ? Is civilization but laying a railroad-track 
or opening a mine ? Is the kingdom of heaven brought 
any nearer by the telegraph ? Is there not a deeper 
problem than that of getting money, in the question 
of how to use it wisely ? With all our cry for prac- 
tical education, is not that training which develops man- 
hood, makes better fathers and citizens, vastly more 
practical than that which aims to double the corn-crop 
or merchant-stock or bank-reserve ? In short, we do 
not hesitate to affirm that now, as ever in the past, soci- 
ety is directed more by men of thought than by men of 
action. Much as Mammon moulds society, mental forces 
mould it more. 

And now, it may seem strange that though we have 



28 THE ART OF LIVING. 

been talking so much about the art of living, we have 
said little about art itself. But no education can be 
complete unless the aesthetic element is recognized. No 
nature, indeed, is capable of education to any high de- 
gree of culture that has not in it a perception and love 
of the beautiful. Beauty is all about us. "It unfolds 
in the flowers of springtime, and colors the autumnal 
leaf. It waves in the branches of trees and the blades 
of grass. It haunts the depth of earth and sea, and 
gleams in the hues of shell and precious stone." The 
ocean, mountains, clouds, sunset, all overflow with beauty. 
There are also the beauties of painting to delight the 
eye, of poetry to please the mind, of music to reach the 
ear. No man can claim true culture whose soul does not 
respond to these artistic creations of God and man. No 
great poem was ever written except in defence of a great 
truth or a noble cause. An impure hand never sketched 
an immortal painting. No brain, discordant with itself 
and the world, could possibly conceive the harmonies of 
a great symphony or an oratorio. And the highest thing 
art has ever done, in any form, is to set before men the 
image of a noble being. Neither can the fine arts be 
appreciated or understood except by the exercise of full- 
grown powers. Only the pure soul responds to its lofty 
inspirations. " For the fine arts," says Euskin, " are not 
to be learned by locomotion, but by making the homes we 
live in lovely." We are not to study art, as is too often 
thought, for its own sake, to give us pleasure, but to find 
a truth, or adorn a principle, or teach a lesson. In other 
words, aesthetics and ethics are inseparable. According 
to the criterion of the critics, that alone is pure literature 
which is written for its own sake. I do not believe this 
verdict will long withstand the demands of this ethical 



THE ART OF LIVING. 29 

age. But whatever may be said of literature, I am sure 
that art as a whole has had a higher inspiration than 
"simply the fun of the thing," and it is destined to fulfil 
a nobler mission than simply to give us something "nice 
to look at." John Ruskin, as we all know, was the first 
great apostle of art to emphasize this fact. And by his 
insistence upon the usefulness of art he has revolution- 
ized the aesthetic world. He freely admits that art is the 
product of human happiness, the expression of human 
pleasure. But it does not minister to solitary happiness 
or pleasure, either of asceticism on the one hand, or Epi- 
cureanism on the other. Buskin distinctly believed that 
the art of any country is the exact exponent of its social 
and political virtues, and he did not think "the classic 
virtues could grace an age of common place." If a na- 
tion had no ethical life, he was sure there could be no 
aesthetic expression. All art of the past is to be studied, 
therefore, strictly with reference to the age in which it 
was produced. We cannot understand the art of any 
period unless we understand the spirit of that time. 
Nor, on the other hand, can we fully appreciate the 
history of any period save as it has expressed itself 
in its contemporary art. The study of the arts or the 
gaining of culture is, therefore, also a progressive study 
as truly as any other form of education. To express art 
for our day and generation, we must embody the highest 
life of to-day. And if such a purpose seem ideal, it 
is not therefore unreal. For our idealism is but the 
realism of others who have reached a higher attain- 
ment. And when we shall have developed to our pres- 
ent ideal, we shall know the realism of nature and of 
nature's God. For, says one, "The idealism of Plato 
and the realism of Bacon will be found to harmonize; 



30 THE ART OF LIVING. 

the generalizations of Humboldt and the poetical in- 
tuitions of Goethe will seem but different descriptions 
of the same facts , idealism and realism blend and are 
extinguished in the intimate harmony between the indi- 
vidual and nature." 

I dare say some of you have been thinking that there 
is too much of the ideal in what I have been saying. 
You very likely have thought that it is altogether too 
ethereal for any use in this practical world. I admit 
that this is a practical age. I also confess that I have 
presented ideal conditions. But precisely what I wish 
to show just now is that ideals themselves are the most 
practical things on earth. I should never forgive myself 
if I did not give what are at present my highest ideals 
of living. What are ideals for, anyway, if not to lead 
us to higher action ? An ideal is but the vision stage of 
theory, and a theory is the formal statement of an ideal. 
An action is but the expression of a theory, or ideal, or 
vision, if you choose to go back that far. There is noth- 
ing so unpromising as stagnant character and self-con- 
tentment. The crystallization of the idealless life is as 
lifeless as coagulated blood. On the other hand, I know 
of a successful young man who has this motto over his 
desk : " The true life of a young man lies in his visions, 
his high ideals, and in his endeavor to realize them." 
There never has been an act of importance on earth that 
was not first a theory, or creed, or principle of faith. 
All private and public action is but putting theories into 
practice. So we had better think three times before we 
condemn the world's theorists, although this is what 
their contemporaries have usually done. All progress is 
nothing more nor less than the readjustment of institu- 
tions to ideals. This is true in the progress of govern- 



THE ART OF LIVING, 31 

ment from despotism to democracy ; it is true in the 
evolution of religion from Fetichism, all along the line 
of heathen cults to Christianity, and in the develop- 
ment of Christianity itself, from formal worship to true 
service, and from human dogma to divine doctrine. The 
same is clearly seen also in the emancipation of thought 
from slavery to metaphysical schools to liberty in the 
individual discovery of truth. It is easy to find illustra- 
tions of these statements. All the experimentations of 
science have been but the following of ideal conceptions, 
and when demonstrated, adjusting the science to them. 
Plato did much toward shaping better governments for 
the future when he wrote " The Ideal Republic." Re- 
publics were born in the ideals of the Magna Charta, 
and democracies in the Declaration of Independence. 
Buddha was the idealist of the Brahman religion, and 
millions of people are now conformed to it while they 
listen to higher ideals of missionaries. Savonarola 
preached high ideals of church and state in Florence, 
and it led to Luther. Luther presented an ideal of 
faith to which the church has conformed itself, and 
Wesley an ideal of practice hard for his age to fulfil. 
Idealized thought was presented to the world in such 
men as Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Emerson, and the 
whole transcendental school. The institutions of men 
are now being adjusted to their thought. Christ him- 
self was the great idealist of all, in government and 
philosophy, in religion and truth, in faith and life. And 
with snail-pace the world is adjusting its life to his lofty 
standards. 

New truths are rare germs. If the world had discov- 
ered but one each century, it would be vastly richer 
than now, and farther advanced. For it has never 



32 THE ART OF LIVING. 

failed to be slowly moulded into the formula of its 
revelations. The discoverer of a new truth is hence 
greater than kings or generals. Emerson once said, 
" Every revolution is started by some man getting hold 
of a new truth ; and when he convinces another man of 
it, that is the key to that era." And men have seemed 
to do just this repeatedly. Almost periodically, it 
would seem, there have been voices in the wilderness of 
their generation. And most frequently, perhaps, they 
have been but John the Baptists, crude, illiterate, and 
ascetic, preparing the way for a greater prophet, more 
systematic, less radical, and more philosophical. Such 
was Socrates to Plato, and Elijah to Elisha, and Confu- 
cius to Buddha, and Savonarola to Luther, and Swe- 
denborg to Bushnell, and Cromwell to "Washington, and 
Carlyle to Buskin, and Garrison to Wendell Phillips. 
And who will say their times have not been epochal 
periods in the world's history ? They have been times 
of the proclaiming of new ideals. They have been new- 
world periods, when with much travail and pain the 
race has sought to be born into higher life. As the dys- 
peptic has his periods of biliousness, and then of vora- 
cious appetite ; as commerce seems to have its decadal 
crises and recurring seasons of prosperity, — so the truth 
seems to come to the world in great cycles and epicy- 
cles. History repeats itself in epoch spirals. Ever and 
again it has its reformers, its discoverers, its preachers 
of a higher righteousness. And when they come, soci- 
ety, with Hiawathian strides and Herculean strength, 
marches out of the wilderness of superstition, and takes 
up new burdens for man's betterment. And whenever 
the world has thus thrown overboard the burden of its 
past mistakes and errors, and has ventured to sail out 



THE ART OF LIVING. 33 

into the unknown ideal sea, it has never failed to find 
some X ray in a new continent, or a law of gravitation, 
or principle of brotherhood, or larger Christ. I some- 
times think these times of larger discovery and life 
mark the centuries. Certain it is that to us who stand 
upon the threshold of a new century, it is easy to 

sing, — 

"We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time ; 
In an age on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime." 

We have our wilderness voices, either proclaiming new 

truth, or bringing to light old truths long covered over 

by the debris of arbitrary interpretation. With the 

ideals of all these taking form in social settlements, 

civil-service reform, institutional churches, arbitration 

conferences, and schools of the kingdom, are not our 

institutions plainly being adjusted to our ideals ? Are 

there not — 

" Titanic forces taking birth 

In divers seasons, divers climes : 
For we are ancients of the earth, 
And in the morning of the times." 

And is it not the duty of this time, as of every other 
time, to adjust its conduct and character to these high- 
est forces ? " Shall we not," says one, " find in being 
and doing preparation for higher being and doing " ? 
Shall we not find in all education, in all art, and in all 
ideals, the means for the perfection of our being ? For 
if we will let them, they will add to our learning and 
to our sympathy that " sweetness and light " of which 
Matthew Arnold is so fond of speaking. 

As the greatest personality has the widest influence, 
so the higher our life, the wider will be our social mis- 



34 THE ART OF LIVING. 

sion, The ideal art of living is the art of being true 
to all the relations of life. True to the home, to social 
circle, to city, state, school, business, and to the church. 
The ideal man, therefore, is the one who is a true 
father, neighbor, citizen, workman, business man, and 
churchman. The greatest men have been true to all 
these relations. The greatest tribute to the greatness 
of Phillips Brooks was the attendance of all classes at 
his funeral. Of the greatest One of all time, it was 
said, "the common people heard him gladly." The 
greatest men professionally have been master of many 
professions. Thus Shakespeare is claimed as the patron 
saint of actors, poets, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and 
many others. Thus Michael Angelo could be great as 
sculptor and architect, as well as painter ; and Da Vinci 
could invent a wheelbarrow and build bridges with the 
true genius of an artist. George Du Maurier could win 
fame either by drawing or writing stories, while F. Hop- 
kinson Smith seems to have little choice in putting his 
pictures in water-colors or word sketches. To one who 
has learned to interpret life, it makes little difference 
whether it be through the sermon of John Watson, 
D.D., or the Scotch narratives of Ian Maclaren. For 
the art of living is the art of interpreting all things in 
terms of the true and the beautiful. The possibility of 
doing all this, of course, has inhered not only in the 
men, but also in the material with which they have 
worked. The only secret rests in the fact that these 
men have penetrated beyond phenomena to the real sub- 
stance of ideas and internal principles. As one puts it : 
"The supreme artist or seer gets so completely to the 
centre of the realm of beauty, that it seems almost a 
matter of indifference to him in what particular channel 



THE ART OF LIVING. 35 

he works." And we are more and more coming to real- 
ize that this innate power of the true genius is supple- 
mented and assisted by the close connection of the arts. 
As we have already noticed, the sciences are insepara- 
ble; just as truly all the arts are interdependent. To 
quote Professor William Knight : " It is not more true 
that zoology and botany, that physiology and psychol- 
ogy, that chemistry and physics, intersect each other, 
than that poetry and music, that sculpture and archi- 
tecture and painting, have the deepest and closest 
affinities." 

One of the best evidences that we are now in a tran- 
sition stage of man's advancement is that we are able 
to see in our generation what others have not been con- 
scious of in theirs. The ancients held that their golden 
age had been in the past. Others have prayed for their 
millennial age in the Nirvana of the future, while we 
seek our golden age in the present. We realize more 
fully than ever, as we stand in the morning of our times, 
that only darker days have gone before. As the race 
pushes on in a never-ending evolution, we know that no 
Eden of the past could surpass our present ideal, or 
even our best attainment. And as we labor to fulfil our 
ideal under the burden and heat of the day, we realize 
that it will contain as much and no more than we put 
into it. It will be the golden age and day if we make 
it so. And though, as Herbert Spencer says, there is 
no political alchemy by which we can get golden con- 
duct out of leaden instincts, there is plenty of chance 
for golden instincts. Hence the need of studying the 
great social problems of the time. Hence the necessity 
of being at once in the world's life, and not of it in its 
unripe actions. The need for the individual is to learn 



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